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Huh, I really liked R2 and not even because it was crazy and zany or anything. It was just as serious, we were put back to square one after what happened, it was a bit of a backlash of leaving me go "what the gently caress just happened", but it got tied up right quick and we got on the way further on with an appropriate ending for all characters, except poor Euphy. Heck, the end even seems to suggest that Lelouch isn't really dead as a part of the curse of the geass. They could make a third season around that fact alone, albeit I don't mind some quiet time in the time period it ended at, maybe resuming after a long time when things have gone to hell again.
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Feb 6, 2014 13:05
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Clearly season 3 will start in the far flung space future with R.R. granting Geass to a young fellow named Reinhard von Lohengramm.
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Feb 6, 2014 13:49
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Code Geass really understood the entertainment value of pomp and glory. All those displays of military force, outrageous nationalism, and "Yes my Lord!" We really could also do with more shows where the moustache twirling villain is the protaganist. Valverave and that other awful Sunrise knock off that copied the less interesting aspects of the show never understood these things.
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Feb 6, 2014 15:02
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The_Guy posted:Code Geass really understood the entertainment value of pomp and glory. All those displays of military force, outrageous nationalism, and "Yes my Lord!" I only know of this show and Death Note that have a story from the villains perspective. I really do want more of these.
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Feb 6, 2014 15:05
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Conot posted:[spoiler] I think this is kind of intentional. Lelouch has a lot of less noble motivations for what he does, not just the ones he's sometimes conscious of (like revenge) but also an unconscious drive to dominate/control other people.
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Feb 6, 2014 17:50
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Silver2195 posted:I think this is kind of intentional. Lelouch has a lot of less noble motivations for what he does, not just the ones he's sometimes conscious of (like revenge) but also an unconscious drive to dominate/control other people. I don't think the show considers this a negative thing, the franchise has a huge hard on for Great Man theory.
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Feb 6, 2014 18:58
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Brasseye posted:I just started watching this ridiculous show last week and I'm about 8 episodes in. My only complaint so far is the time where Lelouch loses his mask to a cat and spends the whole episode trying to get it back. The cat helmet episode is some of the dumbest most pointless filler I have ever seen. Does anything happen in that episode? At all? THE AWESOME GHOST posted:R2 got really dumb for a couple of reasons: I thought of Lelouch’s motivation as “gently caress YOU DAD, you let mom die and abandoned me and Nunally” but when he learns his mom is sort-of still around and that they weren’t abandoned he’s still stuck in the “gently caress YOU DAD” mindset and his dad’s plan is basically insane anyway so screw him. Still I kind of write-off anything related to the Euphinator as complete bullshit and almost everything that happens with Marianne is nonsense. I mean most of the geass powers are tied into what a person desires. Lelouch wanted to order people about. C.C. wanted to be loved. Mao wanted to know what people were thinking. The motives behind a lot of the other powers aren’t really explained at all but they don’t seem that silly. Charles wanting to control memories, Rolo wanting to stop time, The Knight of One wanting to know the immediate future. But it completely falls down with Marianne who apparently looked at a little girl and thought “I want your body” or "I want to be inside your head" so became some kind of brain-hijacker. I actually liked that R2 was a retread of R1 but on a different scale, it seemed completely appropriate for the revolution leader to return to fighting the same war but with different stakes. I don’t even mind Lelouch taking over the world in an hour, because he does so in a monstrous way and there’s a clear reason why he didn’t just do that in the first place. Mordaedil posted:Heck, the end even seems to suggest that Lelouch isn't really dead as a part of the curse of the geass. They could make a third season around that fact alone, albeit I don't mind some quiet time in the time period it ended at, maybe resuming after a long time when things have gone to hell again. That’s my read on the ending as well and it does allow for future stories but I think there’s a couple of complications. 1) If it’s set in the near future then it could invalidate R2’s ending (and IMO R2’s ending kinda redeemed R2 EP19 onwards), but if it’s set in the far future that means abandoning the entire cast and setting, plus either reimagining Lelouch or contriving an excuse for him to stay the same. 2) It’s not entirely clear if Geass-holders retain their powers after taking an immortal’s code... if they do then you have an extremely overpowered hero – Immortal, hyper-smart and with mind-control superpowers that allow him to take over the world in an hour when he really wants to. If he loses his Geass powers then I’d still say the Immortal+Genius combo is less interesting than the MindControl+Genius combo. There’s definitely workarounds though. I mean I’d definitely read a story with him as a wandering chessmaster who gets tangled up in a space version of the Liar Game or something. “Well I already conquered the world once, so I guess I’ll take up card-battling”, he certainly has the flair for it. Mordaedil posted:I only know of this show and Death Note that have a story from the villains perspective. Gankutsuou changes the original protagonist into an evil space vampire, then changes it's mind and picks somebody else to be the protagonist instead. Not quite the same thing, but still close enough to mention.
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Feb 6, 2014 19:50
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Elite posted:2) It’s not entirely clear if Geass-holders retain their powers after taking an immortal’s code... if they do then you have an extremely overpowered hero – Immortal, hyper-smart and with mind-control superpowers that allow him to take over the world in an hour when he really wants to. If he loses his Geass powers then I’d still say the Immortal+Genius combo is less interesting than the MindControl+Genius combo. Actually, it is once you see C.C.'s past. That was half the reason she killed the immortal nun; to get rid of her powers. Well, that and the nun's insane pleading.
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Feb 6, 2014 20:12
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Rodyle posted:I don't think the show considers this a negative thing, the franchise has a huge hard on for Great Man theory. Those aren't mutually exclusive elements. The series can be said to roughly follow "Great Man" theory in the sense that exceptionally gifted individuals like Lelouch may change the course of world events (almost like, say, what Alexander the Great or Napoleon are popularly perceived to have done, whether that matches the historical record or not), yet this doesn't mean they are necessarily portrayed as being perfect or lacking any negative traits. In other words...Lelouch might be a relatively sympathetic and magnificent/fabulous bastard, but he's still a bastard. Even the staff doesn't shy away from calling him "evil" either. Elite posted:The cat helmet episode is some of the dumbest most pointless filler I have ever seen. Does anything happen in that episode? At all? Well, you do get some of the first normal interactions between Lelouch and Suzaku plus the Emperor's whole speech at the end.
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Feb 6, 2014 21:56
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AlternateNu posted:Actually, it is once you see C.C.'s past. That was half the reason she killed the immortal nun; to get rid of her powers. Well, that and the nun's insane pleading. Wait I though that the Nun killed herself after giving the code to C.C. because she wanted to die which is why she raised C.C. in the first place as only someone with the double eye Geass can take/be given the code? Though it has been a while since I watched that episode.
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Feb 6, 2014 22:30
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Elite posted:Basically for all it's silliness I thought Code Geass did a good job at making the battles and conflicts feel sensible, at least in R1. I mean one of the first things Lelouch does is assassinate the enemy leader, and the empire immediately responds by sending in people that are more competent and more dangerous. Not saying there aren't notable exceptions but they're in the minority. Sort of related, one of the things that really struck me about R2 is how much less interesting the aerial mech battles are compared to the mostly ground based season one fights. When the knightmares are driving around, interacting with the terrain and getting into fistfights there's a real sense of weight and scale to them. Once they start flying you lose all that and it devolves into two points in space buzzing around and shooting beams at each other.
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Feb 6, 2014 22:31
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I imagine Lelouch wouldn't be in his normal body or anything, but occasionally take over C.C.'s she'd allow it. The audience would still know what is going on by seeing Lelouches profile sometimes sticking out of her like he did outside of his Zero mask. Maybe they'd discuss reasoning for his choices inside of her mind and decide it is a time to return to form, but I am not sure what his main motivation could be.
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Feb 6, 2014 22:53
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Geass has a lot of problems but I really liked how they handled the final fight. Any other show would have had Suzaku take a dive to fulfill his plan and thus leave the Suzaku/Kallen rivalry unanswered. Geass set it up so Suzaku literally could not take a dive in the fight because he was up against someone talented enough to kill him and thus had to fight at his best and Kallen is allowed to just squeak out a win without Suzaku's latter survival devaluing it because Suzaku as a character could not have held back in that fight even if he ended up surviving it. Also the first thing they do is tear off each other's stupid stupid wings.
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Feb 6, 2014 23:18
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Kalion posted:Wait I though that the Nun killed herself after giving the code to C.C. because she wanted to die which is why she raised C.C. in the first place as only someone with the double eye Geass can take/be given the code? Though it has been a while since I watched that episode. I think you're right about the immortality thing, but people who have a Geass code no longer have their Geass power manifest. You see it with C.C. and the lack of adoration. You see it with Charles and the fact he didn't just make Lelouch lose his memories again while they were fighting in the Akashic Records. And V.V. never showed a power.
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Feb 7, 2014 01:58
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V.V. has the power to make the audience forget he ever existed. Christ, I had even forgotten that character was a thing until I read your post.
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Feb 7, 2014 09:46
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What a weird time for this thread to pop up, I just recently started watching this. I tried about a year ago but lost interest after the... cat adventure. Started back on the episode immediately after that and I think I'm hooked this time.
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Feb 7, 2014 09:51
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Mordaedil posted:V.V. has the power to make the audience forget he ever existed. His role is particularly ridiculous considering how important the end of season 1 sets him up to be. Granted he turned out to have killed Marianne but by the time you learn that V.V. himself is dead and Marianne's no longer worth avenging.
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Feb 7, 2014 14:21
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Elite posted:The emotional complaint makes a lot of sense though. Watching your favourite characters get completely screwed over and go through hell isn't very pleasant, even if it works out in the end. To be fair that's kinda standard operating procedure, even in season 1. Shirley, Euphie, etc. It's intentional to make the viewer empathize with Lelouch's hatred of how hosed up the world is, and want to see things changed. Mordaedil posted:I only know of this show and Death Note that have a story from the villains perspective. Akagi is very excellent and pretty much fits the moustache-twirling villain mold.
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Feb 7, 2014 17:15
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I think the cat episode was when the show was still feeling out what the hell it wanted to be. That episode was experimenting with focusing an entire episode on high-school hijinks and thankfully they decided nope, this isn't us and left said hijinks in the background of future episodes. Maybe I'm misremembering though.
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Feb 7, 2014 17:49
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I dunno, I think the episode with Arthur stealing the mask is sorta important in that it finally shows us that Suzaku and Lelouch can easily work together if they need to. So it kinda starts setting things up for when Mao turns up ruining everything and when they do it out of necessity when that random guy returns with the Chinese near the end of S1. It also shows Charles twisting Clovis' death into Britannian propaganda which is a supremely lovely thing to do. His entire spiel about "man is not made equal" is a remarkably interesting ideological perspective and gives us insight into Charles as a person rather than a nebulous spectre who Lelouch wants rid of.
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Feb 7, 2014 17:55
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Dragonatrix posted:It also shows Charles twisting Clovis' death into Britannian propaganda which is a supremely lovely thing to do. His entire spiel about "man is not made equal" is a remarkably interesting ideological perspective and gives us insight into Charles as a person rather than a nebulous spectre who Lelouch wants rid of. While it does give insight into the Emperor's character, I wouldn't call it even remotely interesting since it's just stock social darwinism.
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Feb 7, 2014 17:57
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TheDemon posted:I think the cat episode was when the show was still feeling out what the hell it wanted to be. That episode was experimenting with focusing an entire episode on high-school hijinks and thankfully they decided nope, this isn't us and left said hijinks in the background of future episodes. Maybe I'm misremembering though. Actually, it appears the cat chase episode worked pretty well among Japanese audiences. I'm not too surprised though. If their crazy variety shows are any indication, slapstick humor seems fairly popular in Japan even outside of anime circles. Kazuya Murata (Gargantia) says he did the storyboards for that episode with an old-fashioned comedy series in mind and was initially afraid it would be too retro, but apparently things worked out in the end. wielder fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Feb 7, 2014 |
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Feb 7, 2014 19:19
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Code Geass was wonderful if you like absolute train wreck plots which, as it happens, I love Also there's no way Lelouch isn't totally alive and living happily ever after with CC
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Feb 8, 2014 07:50
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Genocyber posted:While it does give insight into the Emperor's character, I wouldn't call it even remotely interesting since it's just stock social darwinism. It doesn't even do that, seeing at its all a lie for the masses and Brittanian elite to consume while he goes off doing some ridiculous Evangelion knock-off plan.
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Feb 8, 2014 09:00
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Yeah Man posted:It doesn't even do that, seeing at its all a lie for the masses and Brittanian elite to consume while he goes off doing some ridiculous Evangelion knock-off plan. I'd ague that the Emperor's public persona still reflects a large part of his character, even as limited as it is. Just like how the whole "Zero" act remains part of Lelouch (and of how others perceive him) regardless of his true personal motivations. If anything, knowing that just allows us to draw a few more parallels between them (in addition to their obvious love of bombastic speeches). wielder fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 19:12
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Cronodoculous posted:What a weird time for this thread to pop up, I just recently started watching this. I tried about a year ago but lost interest after the... cat adventure. Started back on the episode immediately after that and I think I'm hooked this time. It popped up to cater for discussion about Akito ep2, though ironically nobody has talked about it so far. Dragonatrix posted:I dunno, I think the episode with Arthur stealing the mask is sorta important in that it finally shows us that Suzaku and Lelouch can easily work together if they need to. So it kinda starts setting things up for when Mao turns up ruining everything and when they do it out of necessity when that random guy returns with the Chinese near the end of S1. Point taken, but they could have shown them working together on anything and out of all the possible collaborations cat-herding has to rank waaay down the list.
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Feb 8, 2014 23:52
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Gravefront posted:Code Geass was wonderful if you like absolute train wreck plots Not sure what you mean by train wreck, but I kinda like it when things don't always turn out hunky-dorey. And well, I suspect he's at the very least no more dead than Marianne was.
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Feb 9, 2014 01:37
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Lelouch is totally dead and the ending makes no sense if he isn't. The entire point of what he did (for himself) was dying to redeem himself for his sins. It doesn't work if you fake your death. Even SRW writes around his death by having him saved by Celestial Being super-science, not just having him survive.
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Feb 9, 2014 01:39
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Mordaedil posted:Not sure what you mean by train wreck Season 2 had a lot of poo poo that came out of nowhere and/or was fairly poorly explained, including charlie's plot, most things geass related, and characters dying then coming back. Basically the TTGL style of regularly upping the ante without actually doing it well. E: Seems like sunrise make a lot of shows with lovely second seasons, iirc this aired at the same time as gundam 00 which also turned into a trainwreck
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Feb 9, 2014 01:53
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ImpAtom posted:Lelouch is totally dead and the ending makes no sense if he isn't. The entire point of what he did (for himself) was dying to redeem himself for his sins. It doesn't work if you fake your death. Even SRW writes around his death by having him saved by Celestial Being super-science, not just having him survive. I agree that makes the most sense, but I can see it going the other way. As you say, he definitely has to die at the end for the story to work, but "death" doesn't have to be literal. Even if he lived on, the human being named Lelouch is gone forever, good as dead. He can never go back to that life. So, rather than taking his survival as "happily ever after" ending, he's accepted a CC's curse of immortality in the same way he's taken on all the hatred from the world. In a way, it's even worse than death; he doesn't get to just escape from his sins, and has to continually suffer indefinitely in a sort of living-purgatory.
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Feb 9, 2014 02:28
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It works even if he lives, yeah. Because he chose to shoulder the burden of pretty much all the evil he could get his hands on, he made himself out as a massive scapegoat. His death sort of clears the slate and lets the next generation sort things out in a better way, which I suppose was his intention all along. He intentionally demonizes himself and his methods as a warning, I guess. Whether he lives or dies is unimportant as far as that goes--a bittersweet happily ever after with just him and CC wouldn't spoil it for me.
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Feb 9, 2014 02:40
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XboxPants posted:I agree that makes the most sense, but I can see it going the other way. As you say, he definitely has to die at the end for the story to work, but "death" doesn't have to be literal. Even if he lived on, the human being named Lelouch is gone forever, good as dead. He can never go back to that life. So, rather than taking his survival as "happily ever after" ending, he's accepted a CC's curse of immortality in the same way he's taken on all the hatred from the world. In a way, it's even worse than death; he doesn't get to just escape from his sins, and has to continually suffer indefinitely in a sort of living-purgatory. It still don't make any sense though. It also means he's screwing over Suzaku one last time for no real reason other than because I guess he really wants to gently caress over Suzaku. "Hey Suzaku, you get to bear the mantel of Zero for the rest of your life, working to atone for your own sins. Meanwhile I get stabbed and now I get to go chill with my immortal girlfriend. I'm outie!"
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Feb 9, 2014 02:44
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^^^^ "Get hosed, Suzaku" is basically the secondary theme of Geass, so that wouldn't really be out of the show's character. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who actually liked the guy. There's some part of me that wants to imagine a happy ending for Karen and Suzaku, since they both got kinda screwed, though Suzaku certainly worse.XboxPants posted:I agree that makes the most sense, but I can see it going the other way. As you say, he definitely has to die at the end for the story to work, but "death" doesn't have to be literal. Even if he lived on, the human being named Lelouch is gone forever, good as dead. He can never go back to that life. So, rather than taking his survival as "happily ever after" ending, he's accepted a CC's curse of immortality in the same way he's taken on all the hatred from the world. In a way, it's even worse than death; he doesn't get to just escape from his sins, and has to continually suffer indefinitely in a sort of living-purgatory. I don't think he'd really be suffering if he was immortal, since he'd get to just leave the world to its devices after he set it up. He may be living a lie in that case, but it's not a specific one he's forced into. He could pretty much just do whatever he wants in that case, including take over the world again if he felt it necessary. Faking his death would pretty much mean he gave up little and just had ultimate victory. I agree with others saying Lelouch surviving would cheapen the whole thing. Suzaku is more the one who is screwed by having to keep on living as someone else, with probably only Karen, Lloyd, and Cecile knowing the truth. They both essentially were to give up their freedom as atonement. Lelouch living directly contradicts that. chumbler fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Feb 9, 2014 |
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Feb 9, 2014 02:47
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Really though, Lelouch is just an anime version of Leto Artreides II and it doesn't make sense if he is alive in any way after.
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Feb 9, 2014 03:12
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Considering lies and deception are also a big theme of the show, I think we'll never know for sure. At least until Sunrise actually makes another Code Geass sequel, which is unlikely but not impossible so far, either interpretation of the ending is formally valid. There's been enough circular debates about that all over the Internet to even try to come up with a definitive answer to the question. Both death and survival can be seen as different forms of atonement or of escape. In any event, the fact of the matter is Lelouch's story is over, either way. If you ask me, the best course of action to appease most of the fans would be to leave the post-R2 fictional universe alone and instead make a couple of Macross Frontier-style movies in 2016. Because it's the 10th anniversary of the original series and all that. Elite posted:It popped up to cater for discussion about Akito ep2, though ironically nobody has talked about it so far. I guess relatively few people have seen it and mostly back in late December/early January. I'd say the release format hurts that too, but if the thread survives until ep3 I'm sure we'll have plenty to talk about. Namtab posted:Season 2 had a lot of poo poo that came out of nowhere and/or was fairly poorly explained, including charlie's plot, most things geass related, and characters dying then coming back. It's not really a trainwreck. It's a case of sloppy yet successful multi-track drifting.  Beyond the messiness, there were enough over-the-top sequences that did "up the ante" fairly well IMO. The show was a crazy soap opera that knew how to take advantage of itself, both for better and for worse. wielder fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Feb 9, 2014 |
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Feb 9, 2014 03:22
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Elite posted:Also if you interpret it as it being Lelouch on the wagon with C.C. then he didn’t even die in the process. If he takes C.C.'s code and becomes immortal (something he always promised to do) then a sword wound like that ain’t no thing. It's certainly ambiguous but this seems like the most obvious read of that scene. I can't believe I never thought of this. My biggest issue with the ending was always why not just fake his death? Surely he has the resources to pull it off but I never caught on to what you just suggested. I never needed Lelouch's story to continue, but abandoning his sister by committing suicide is straight-up bullshit and completely out of character even if he were at the end of his metaphorical rope. ImpAtom posted:It still don't make any sense though. It also means he's screwing over Suzaku one last time for no real reason other than because I guess he really wants to gently caress over Suzaku. "Hey Suzaku, you get to bear the mantel of Zero for the rest of your life, working to atone for your own sins. Meanwhile I get stabbed and now I get to go chill with my immortal girlfriend. I'm outie!" If he thought Suzaku would do a better job than he could then yes, he absolutely would do that. Also I like that interpretation purely on the basis of "gently caress Suzaku" because seriously, that guy's awful. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Feb 9, 2014 |
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Feb 9, 2014 03:42
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Interviews with the director also pretty say Lelouch is dead, I think it's worth mentioning. Death of the author and all but the dude is supposed to be dead as far as these things are concerned.quote:That's true. There are probably a lot of people who think of it as a Bad End, a tragedy, considering the protagonist's, Lelouch's end as well. However, Lelouch says in the first episode: "Only those prepared to be shot are allowed to pull the trigger themselves." If you were to think of that as his pride, then I think his getting killed in the end was a logical end. Of course, I understand that not all of the viewers will accept this ending. There were people who wanted a happier ending, after all. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Feb 9, 2014 |
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Feb 9, 2014 03:53
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ImpAtom posted:It still don't make any sense though. It also means he's screwing over Suzaku one last time for no real reason other than because I guess he really wants to gently caress over Suzaku. "Hey Suzaku, you get to bear the mantel of Zero for the rest of your life, working to atone for your own sins. Meanwhile I get stabbed and now I get to go chill with my immortal girlfriend. I'm outie!" If he took her code she'd either be mortal or maybe just die immediately. (I forget how that works, but even if she was mortal I wouldn't be surprised if she just took matters into her own hands and embraced her death)
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Feb 9, 2014 04:16
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Mortal; V.V. died from being shot around the same time as Charles took his code. The loss of the code in itself didn't kill him.
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Feb 9, 2014 04:17
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Namtab posted:Season 2 had a lot of poo poo that came out of nowhere and/or was fairly poorly explained, including charlie's plot, most things geass related, and characters dying then coming back. If there's one thing I enjoyed from season two was the short omake things with Rolo.
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Feb 9, 2014 04:20
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